Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

An assessment of soil erosion prevention by vegetation in

Mediterranean Europe: Current trends of ecosystem service provision
Carlos A. Guerra a,b,∗ , Joachim Maes b , Ilse Geijzendorffer c , Marc J. Metzger d
a
Instituto de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais Mediterrânicas, Universidade de Évora, Pólo da Mitra, Apartado 94, 7002-554 Évora, Portugal
b
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Via E. Fermi, 2749, I-21027 Ispra, VA, Italy
c
Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE), Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, IRD, Avignon Université,
Technopôle Arbois-Méditerranée, Bât. Villemin – BP 80, F-13545 Aix-en-Provence, France
d
School of GeoSciences, The University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, EH8 9XP Edinburgh, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The concept of ecosystem services has received increased attention in recent years, and is seen as a use-
Received 17 November 2014 ful construct for the development of policy relevant indicators and communication for science, policy
Received in revised form 27 June 2015 and practice. Soil erosion is one of the main environmental problems for European Mediterranean agro-
Accepted 29 June 2015
forestry systems, making soil erosion prevention a key ecosystem service to monitor and assess. Here, we
Available online 18 July 2015
present a spatially and temporally explicit assessment of the provision of soil erosion prevention by veg-
etation in Mediterranean Europe between 2001 and 2013, including maps of vulnerable areas. We follow
Keywords:
a recently described conceptual framework for the mapping and assessment of regulating ecosystem ser-
Ecosystem service mapping
Indicators
vices to calculate eight process-based indicators, and an ecosystem service provision profile. Results show
Change detection a relative increase in the effectiveness of provision of soil erosion prevention in Mediterranean Europe
Policy support between 2001 and 2013. This increase is particularly noticeable between 2009 and 2013, but it does
Trend assessment not represent a general trend across the whole Mediterranean region. Two regional examples describe
RUSLE contrasting trends and illustrate the need for regional assessments and policy targets. Our results demon-
strate the strength of having a coherent and complementary set of indicators for regulating services to
inform policy and land management decisions.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Soil erosion is one of the main environmental problems in Euro-
pean Mediterranean agro-forestry systems (García-Ruiz, 2010) and
for the sustainability of important ecosystems (Almagro et al.,
2013; Arnaez et al., 2011). Several legislative and scientific initia-
tives have focussed on this issue since the late 1950s and recently
the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection (TSSP) defined a coher-
ent framework for the assessment of European soils (CEC, 2006).
It pointed out the concentration of soil related risks in southern
Europe and the absence of a standardized approach to obtain pol-
icy relevant indicators (Gobin et al., 2004; Panagos et al., 2014a;
Van-camp et al., 2004).
The ecosystem service (ES) concept is an effective communica-
tion tool to bridge knowledge between science and policy (Maes
∗ Corresponding author at: Instituto de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais Mediter-
rânicas, Universidade de Évora, Pólo da Mitra, Apartado 94, 7002-554 Évora,
Portugal. Tel.: +351 91 310 12 93.
E-mail address: cguerra@uevora.pt (C.A. Guerra).
et al., 2012; Viglizzo et al., 2012). In the case of soil erosion pre-
vention (SEP), the TSSP recognizes the importance and knowledge
gaps related to the contribution of specific ecosystems and ecosys-
tem functions to the mitigation of soil erosion. The ES concept also
supports guidelines for the development of policy relevant indica-
tors for international monitoring systems (Reyers et al., 2013; Tallis
et al., 2012) because ES indicators that are sensitive to changes in
land use, calculated using standardized methods (e.g. Maes et al.,
2015), provide critical sources of information for agro-forestry sys-
tems under pressure from policy, environmental or climatic drivers
(Hill et al., 2008; Navarra and Tubiana, 2013).
Several studies (e.g. Martínez-Harms and Balvanera, 2012) and
international initiatives (e.g. the Common International Classifica-
tion of Ecosystem Services (Haines-young and Potschin, 2013)) are
contributing to the development of a coherent indicator set for the
mapping and assessment of ES. Under Action 5 of the European
Union (EU) Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 (EC, 2011) the Working
Group on Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Ser-
vices (MAES) was set up to develop an assessment approach to be
implemented by the EU and its Member States (Maes et al., 2013,
2014). Supported by a growing scientific literature (Costanza and

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.06.043
1470-160X/© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
214 C.A. Guerra et al. / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222
Kubiszewski, 2012; Seppelt et al., 2011), this working group iden-
tified the need for more consistent methodological approaches to
quantify and map ES and underlined the importance of finding indi-
cators of ES provision (Müller and Burkhard, 2012) that are sensitive
to measure policy impacts (Dunbar et al., 2013; Maes et al., 2012).
Vegetation regulates soil erosion and thereby provides a major
contribution to Mediterranean agro-forestry system’s sustaina-
bility (Iglesias et al., 2011; Olesen et al., 2011). However, the
regulation of soil erosion is projected to decrease in the coming
decades in the region due to overgrazing, forest fires, land aban-
donment, climate change, urbanization or the combination of these
drivers (López-Vicente et al., 2013; Shakesby, 2011). And the inten-
sity of these drivers has increased in the last decade (Bangash et al.,
2013; García-Ruiz and Lana-Renault, 2011; Hoerling et al., 2012;
Llasat et al., 2010; Otero et al., 2011). Vegetation acts as an ES
provider by preventing soil erosion and therefore mitigating the
impact that results from the combination of the erosive power of
precipitation and the biophysical conditions of a given area. Con-
sequently, to better represent the impacts related to these drivers
it is necessary to map not only the capacity for ES provision (e.g.
according to land cover type) but also the actual ES provision and
the remaining soil erosion (Nelson et al., 2009).
This paper presents a spatially and temporally explicit assess-
ment of the provision of SEP by vegetation in Mediterranean Europe
between 2001 and 2013. It provides insights on past and current
trends of ES provision and enables the mapping of vulnerable areas.
Finally, it demonstrated the strength of having a coherent and com-
plementary set of ecosystem service indicators to inform policy and
land management decisions.
2. Methods
2.1. Study area
The Mediterranean Environmental Zones (Metzger et al., 2005)
were used to define the geographic extent of the study, which was
constrained to continental Europe and a few larger islands due to
data availability. The study area corresponds to 1.06 Million km2
and covers all European Mediterranean countries (Fig. 1). It
encompasses three major environmental zones, i.e. Mediterranean
Mountains, which experience more precipitation than elsewhere
in the Mediterranean, Mediterranean North and Mediterranean
South, both characterized by warm and dry summers and pre-
cipitation concentrated in the winter months (Metzger et al.,
2008a,b). Within the region agriculture is generally constrained
by water availability and poor soils, and grasslands, vineyards and
orchards are important land cover/use features (Almeida et al.,
2013; Panagos et al., 2013).
2.2. Conceptual background
The conceptual approach for mapping and assessment of reg-
ulating services used in this paper has recently been described
by Guerra et al. (2014), and is summarized in Fig. 2. SEP is pro-
vided at the interface between the structural components of the
agro-forestry system and its land use/cover dynamics, which help
mitigate the potential impacts from soil erosion (Guerra et al., 2014,
2015). This approach combines a strong conceptual framework
with the “avoided change” principle, characterizing regulating ES
provision as the degradation that does not happen due to the con-
tribution of the regulating ES provider (i.e. the vegetation cover)
(Layke et al., 2012).
To assess SEP following this framework it is necessary to first
identify the structural impact ( ) related to soil erosion, i.e. the
erosion that would occur when vegetation is absent and therefore
no ES is provided (Fig. 2a). It determines the potential soil erosion
in a given place and time and is related to rainfall erosivity (i.e.
the erosive potential of rainfall), soil erodibility (as a character-
istic of the soil type) and local topography (Panagos et al., 2011;
Ribeiro et al., 2004). Although external drivers can have an effect
on these variables, they are less prone to be changed directly by
human action.
The actual ES provision (Es) is a fraction of the total potential
soil erosion (i.e. structural impact:  ), and it is determined by
the capacity for ES provision (es ) in a given place and time. We
can then define the latter as a key component to quantify the
fraction of the structural impact that is mitigated (Fig. 2b) and to
determine the remaining soil erosion (i.e. the ES mitigated impact
(ˇe )). This capacity for ES provision is influenced by both inter-
nal drivers (including land management options, forest fires, and
urban sprawl) and external drivers (including agricultural policy
measures, spatial planning, and climate change). A detailed descrip-
tion of the methodological and conceptual frameworks is given in
Guerra et al. (2014).
2.3. Indicators of ecosystem service provision
To understand the relation between drivers and the provision
of ES, it is essential to translate the dynamics of the agro-forestry
systems into a set of process related indicators that express system
responses (Müller and Burkhard, 2012; Guerra et al., 2015). We pro-
pose a set of eight indicators that describe the different processes
that contribute to SEP (Table 1), including indicators describing
the state and dynamics of the structural impact ( ), the ES miti-
gated impact (ˇe ), the actual ES provision (Es) and the capacity for
ES provision (es ). Together, these eight indicators are sensitive to
changes in the climatic profile of each region, soil types, topogra-
phy, management options and environmental drivers. Although all
indicators have been produced at a 250 m resolution, these were
finally aggregated by summation to a 5 km grid (25 km2 ) resolu-
tion to better communicate changes and trends in ES provision
and to avoid false precision related with the different data qual-
ity of the input datasets. In the case of the capacity for ES provision
the average was used as, considering the adimensional character of
this indicator, the sum does not provide any relevant interpretation
value.
2.4. Datasets and methodological application
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) (Wischmeier and Smith,
1978), a commonly used empirical model for the determina-
tion of potential soil losses (Amore et al., 2004; Fistikoglu and
Harmancioglu, 2002), was used to calculate SEP between 2001 and
2013. Soil erosion is represented by a set of critical factors given by
(Panagos et al., 2011):
A = R × LS × K × C × P
where A (ton ha−1 ) represents the amount of soil loss, R
(MJ mm ha−1 h−1 ) the rainfall erosivity, LS (dimensionless) the
topographic factor, K (t ha h ha−1 MJ−1 mm−1 ) the soil erodibility, C
(dimensionless) the vegetation cover factor and P (dimensionless)
the conservation practices factor.
For the ES assessment, the structural impact ( ) was calcu-
lated using the expression  = R × LS × K (Prasuhn et al., 2013), and
the gradient of ES mitigated impact was determined by ˇe =  × ˛
(where ˛ = C and es = 1 − ˛). Technical infrastructure that could
reduce impacts locally was not consider given the spatial scale of
the study. Following these two expressions the actual ES provision
(Es ) can be calculated by Es =  − ˇe . Although no absolute mea-
sure of soil erosion is obtained, this mathematical formulation will
 C.A. Guerra et al. / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222 215

Fig. 1. Geographic scope of the study area according to the European Environmental Stratification (Metzger et al., 2005).

Fig. 2. Conceptual framework for assessing the provision of regulating services (adapted from Guerra et al., 2015), where (a) presents the structural impact ( ) (i.e. the total
soil erosion impact in the absence of SEP); (b) distinguishes the actual ES provision (Es) as an avoided portion of the structural impact (measured in tons of soil not eroded)
and determined by the capacity for ES provision (es ) (i.e. the fraction of the structural impact that is mitigated by the ES, corresponding to an adimensional gradient ranging
from 0 to 1), and the remaining ES mitigated impact (ˇe ) (i.e. the remaining soil erosion that is not regulated by SEP); and (c) considers the variations in the actual ES provision
resulting from changes in land management that occur at the local level although influenced by internal and external drivers.

Table 1
List of calculated indicators to describe the state and dynamics of ES provision (all indicators are provided at a 5 km grid resolution).

Indicator Description Units

Structural impact
Ecosystem service mitigated impact
Actual ecosystem service provision
Ecosystem service provision capacity
Variation in structural impact
Rate of effective ecosystem service provision
Variation in ecosystem service provision capacity
Variation in ecosystem mitigated impact
Total soil erosion impact when no ecosystem service is Tons of soil per pixel area
provided
Total of the remaining soil erosion after the ecosystem service Tons of soil per pixel area
provision
Total of the actual ecosystem service provision corresponds to Tons of soil per pixel area
the total amount of ecosystem service provided, measured in
ecosystem service providing units (tons of soil not eroded). It
varies from season to season and year-to-year depending on
the variation of the structural impact
Average fraction of the structural impact that is mitigated by –
the ecosystem service, it corresponds to an adimensional
gradient from 0 to 1
% Variation in the total amount of structural impact %
considering the previous reference date
% Variation in the total amount of actual ecosystem service %
provision corrected by the structural impact fluctuations for a
 usingthefollowingexpression:
given region
Est+1 t+1
100 × Est
−1 − t
−1 , where Es is the total actual
ecosystem service provision, is the total structural impact,
and t corresponds to the temporal frame.
% Variation in the total amount of ecosystem service provision %
capacity considering the previous reference date
% Variation in the total amount of ecosystem service mitigated %
impact considering the previous reference date
216 C.A. Guerra et al. / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222
generate a spatially explicit gradient of the potential soil loss and
the related gradient of ecosystem service provided by vegetation
cover (Guerra et al., 2014). Artificial surfaces were excluded from
the evaluation and all parameters (after estimation) were directly
resampled to a 250 m resolution using an average filter.
2.4.1. Rainfall erosivity
The rainfall erosivity was estimated using the MedREM model
proposed by Diodato and Bellocchi (2010) for Mediterranean con-
ditions for the years of 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013. This model was
originally calibrated and validated using 66 meteorological stations
distributed throughout the Mediterranean basin with multi-year
data of rainfall erosivity (Diodato and Bellocchi, 2010). It consid-
ers the variability in rainfall distribution and intensity and also
the longitudinal differences within the Mediterranean basin. Rain-
fall erosivity was calculated between the months of August and
November, corresponding to the most critical period for soil ero-
sion in Mediterranean conditions (Luis et al., 2010). Daily rainfall
observations, available through the European Climate Assessment
and Dataset (ECA&D; http://eca.knmi.nl/; Haylock et al., 2008),
were divided into four partially overlapping temporal time slices
([1991–2001]; [1995–2005]; [1999–2009]; [2003–2013]). For each
time slice, the rainfall erosivity factor was calculated using the fol-
lowing expression (adapted from Diodato and Bellocchi, 2010):
 (Fig. 5). The first group (1Q) represent areas that, despite their
Rm = b0 × pm × dm × (a + b1 × L)
where Rm (MJ mm ha−1 h−1 month−1 ) corresponds to the monthly
erosivity factor for the month m, b0 (MJ ha−1 h−1 ) is a constant
equal to 0.117, b1 (d0.5 mm−0.50–1 ) is a constant equal to 2, a
(d0.5 mm−0.50 ) is a constant equal to −0.015, L (◦ ) corresponds to
the site longitude, Pm (mm) to the total amount of precipitation in
a given month m, and dm (mm d−1 ) to the monthly maximum daily
precipitation for month m averaged over a multi-year period (in
this case a 10 years period was selected).
2.4.2. Soil erodibility
For the soil erodibility parameter we used the high resolution
(500 m resolution) European soil erodibility map (Panagos et al.,
2014b) calculated from data collected in the Land Use/Cover Area
frame Survey (LUCAS) soil survey for 2009. This was calculated
based on the equation proposed by Wischmeier and Smith (1978)
and Renard et al. (1997) (Panagos et al., 2014b):
 
K = (2.1 × 10−4 M 1.14 (12 − a) + 3.25(s − 2) + 2.5(p − 3))/100
× 0.1317
where K corresponds to the soil erodibility factor, a is the percent-
age of organic matter, b the soil structure parameter, c the profile
permeability class, and M = (%silt + %ver fine sand ) × (100 − %sand ).
2.4.3. Topography
For the topographic factor the SRTM shuttle DEM (90 m) was
used following the expression proposed by Moore and Burch
(1986):
 a × p 0.4  sin(d) 1.3
LS = × north of Italy, south of France, the East coast of the Adriatic Sea and
22.13 0.0896
where LS represents the topographic factor, a refers to the flow
accumulation model obtained from the topographic dataset, p to
the pixel size (90 m), and d to the slope model in degrees.
2.4.4. Vegetation cover
To estimate the capacity for ecosystem service provision it
is necessary to obtain an approximation of the vegetation cover
parameter. This parameter was estimated for each time slice using
the relation between the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
(NDVI; calculated from MODIS 16 days NDVI composites with a
250 m pixel resolution) and the USLE C Factor proposed by Van der
Knijff et al. (1999, 2000) (Prasannakumar et al., 2012):
NDVI
C = exp −a ×
(b − NDVI)
where a = 2 and b = 1.
2.4.5. Integrated analysis and vulnerability assessment
The spatial distribution and temporal trends of the indicators
(see Table 1) were analyzed and mapped, and an overall ES pro-
vision profile was calculated for the entire study area. This was
done using spatial statistics to obtain a total sum value (or an aver-
age value in the case of the capacity for ES provision) for the entire
study area, and made it possible to isolate vulnerability areas and
to pinpoint the periods with higher impact on SEP.
The vulnerability areas were identified by superimposing the
variation of the capacity for ES provision (positive or negative), with
the variation of the ES mitigated impact (positive or negative), both
calculated between 2001 and 2013. A breakdown of the total land
surface area covered by different combinations of these two vari-
ables reveals four groups related to each of the four quadrants
increase in the capacity for ES provision, reveal an increase of ES
mitigated impact, i.e. despite the increase of vegetation capacity to
halt soil erosion, there was an increase in the remaining soil ero-
sion after the ES provision. The second (2Q) consisted of areas with
a decrease of the capacity for ES provision and an increase of the
ES mitigated impact, i.e. this group reflects the expected trend that
a decrease in vegetation capacity to halt soil erosion resulted in
more soil erosion. In the third group (3Q) are combined areas with
a decrease of both the capacity for ES provision and the ES mitigated
impact, i.e. reflecting a reduction in the efficiency of the ES to halt
soil erosion, and finally the fourth group (4Q) included areas with
an increase of capacity related to a decrease of the ES mitigated
impact. This assessment thus identifies three types of vulnerable
areas that require policy action (i.e. 1Q, 2Q, and 3Q).
Following this analysis, two smaller case-studies with con-
trasting regional ES provision profiles are described. Their specific
ES provision profiles were constructed based on the description of
the main indicators following the same methodological approach
as for the overall ES provision profile described for the entire study
area.
3. Results
3.1. States and trends of the structural impact
The structural impact ( ) followed the rainfall dynamics during
the same period: decreasing between 2001 and 2009 but increasing
toward 2013. Overall, a decrease of 7.86% was observed between
2001 and 2013. Using 2013 as a reference year, the distribution of
the structural impact (Fig. 3) showed relatively high values in the
the western and southern areas of the Iberian Peninsula. This spatial
distribution remained throughout the period of the analysis with
the exception of 2009, when the distribution was less pronounced.
Between 2001 and 2013 the areas that experienced an increasing
structural impact over the four months in analysis were located in
the south of Italy and in the south of the Iberian Peninsula (Fig. 3).
The results also showed that this increase is mainly related to an
increase and higher variability of the structural impact (related to an
increase in precipitation) in October following a dip in September.
 C.A. Guerra et al. / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222
Fig. 3. Spatial distribution of the different indicators calculated to illustrate the spatial and temporal distribution of SEP in Mediterranean Europe (all indicators were
computed based in a 5 km grid).
3.2. States and trends of the ES mitigated impact
The ES mitigated impact (ˇe ) presented a different trend from
the structural impact with an increase between 2001 and 2005 fol-
lowed by a relatively constant decrease in its values until 2013. For
2013 (Fig. 3) it showed a concentration of high values mainly in
the Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, and in particular areas of
the North of Italy and South of France. Together with some areas in
the East of the Iberian Peninsula, South of Italy, and East of Greece,
these areas also corresponded to the regions where this indicator
has increased between 2001 and 2013. This trend implies a degra-
dation of the conditions present in a given place as the total amount
of soil loss (after the provision of SEP) increased. Despite of these
degradation areas, the overall result for the entire region showed a
decrease of 15.09% of ES mitigated impact between 2001 and 2013.
This decrease was mainly located in Greece and in large portions of
Italy, Spain and Portugal.
3.3. States and trends of ES provision
As expected, the actual ES provision (Es) showed the same spatial
and temporal pattern as the structural impact (Fig. 3). By contrast,
217
the capacity for ES provision (es ) revealed two very different pat-
terns. The first pattern included the Iberian Peninsula and some
areas in Southern Italy and in Eastern Greece, which were charac-
terized by lower values and a more differentiated distribution of
this indicator. The spatial location of these low values was simi-
lar to the spatial distribution of high values of structural impact,
particularly in the South of the Iberian Peninsula and in the South
coast of Italy (see Annex 1). The second pattern concerned areas
that showed more homogeneous distribution of higher values
of the capacity for ES provision. Examples of these areas are the
South of France, the East coast of the Adriatic Sea and the North
of Italy. Despite this variable distribution, considering the entire
region the overall values of the capacity for ES provision increased
slightly between 2001 and 2013, from 0.815 to 0.844 (Fig. 4). This
increase originated mainly from the South and East coast of Italy
and from large areas in the North of Iberian Peninsula, while in
the South of the Iberian Peninsula the capacity for ES provision
decreased between 2001 and 2013. This overall increase is the
result of a constant positive trend between 2001 and 2013 that is
more substantial between 2009 and 2013 (Fig. 4). Regarding these
areas in the South of the Iberian Peninsula, and using the monthly
218 C.A. Guerra et al. / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222
Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of the rate of effective ES provision for the different periods considered (on the left) and the overall ES provision profile representing the different
SEP indicators aggregated for the entire study area (on the right).
variation of the capacity for ES provision, we infer that this
decreasing trend was related mainly to a decrease of provisioning
capacity in October, particularly between 2001 and 2005. These
spatial and temporal decrease patterns of the capacity for ES provi-
sion were in line with the increase of structural impact in the region.
A more detailed analysis of the rate of effective ES provision
(Fig. 4) showed substantial dissimilarities between the different
regions that were even more pronounced over the entire period
(2001–2013) (see Fig. 5 for an example). While in the first period
(2001–2005) the Iberian Peninsula showed substantial losses (rate
of effective ES provision equal to −5.21%), in the following periods
these losses were located more toward the North of Italy and
the South of France (2005–2009) and to the South of Italy and
Greece (2009–2013). Overall, although not statistically significant
(p = 0.05), the entire study region presented a positive trend in
terms of the effectiveness of service provision (0.66%), particularly
in the period between 2009 and 2013 where the rate of effective ES
provision increased by 1.62% (Fig. 4).
The vulnerability analysis revealed that 43.5% of the total area
is related to one of the three groups of vulnerable areas (i.e. 1Q,
2Q and 3Q) (Fig. 5a). The second (2Q corresponding to 16.5% of the
total area) and the fourth group (4Q corresponding to 56.5% of the
total area) demonstrated the expected inverse relation between the
capacity for ES provision and the ES mitigated impact. Put differently,
the increased capacity to prevent soil erosion is generally posi-
tively correlated to a decrease in soil erosion. In contrast, the other
two groups included areas where despite an increase of capacity
there is still an increase of impact (1Q corresponding to 18.8% of
the total area), as well as areas where a decrease of capacity is fol-
lowed by a decrease of the ES mitigated impact (3Q corresponding
to 8.2% of the total area). Therefore to interpret trends of SEP provi-
sion to formulate effective mitigation measures these two different
indicators need to be considered (i.e. the capacity for ES provision
and the ES mitigated impact). Combined, these two indicators give
a clear picture of the underlying questions that rise in each area.
Fig. 5 suggests that in 64.7% of the total area the ES mitigated impact
decreased, mainly due to an increase of the capacity for ES provi-
sion. In contrast, from the 35.3% of areas with an increase of the ES
mitigated impact, 53.3% also showed an increase of the capacity for
ES provision.
The two selected case-study regions (Fig. 5b and c) illustrate
two very different trends. R1, the NUTS 3 Ciudad Real in Spain
(Fig. 5b), presents an overall (2001–2013) negative trend of the rate
of effective ES provision (−4.73%). This happens despite the slight
increase in the capacity for ES provision (0.84%) in the same period
and is related to the substantial increase (118.14%) in the ES miti-
gated impact in the first period (2001–2005), which resulted from
a decrease of 15.08% in the rate of effective ES provision for the same
period. Despite the recent (2005–2013) improvements in the rate
of effective ES provision, the regional SEP dynamics resulted in an
increase of 43.98% of the ES mitigated impact between 2001 and
2013. In contrast, R2, the NUTS 3 Trikala in Greece (Fig. 5c), presents
an overall (2001–2013) negative trend of the rate of effective ES
provision (4.71%) accompanied by a decrease of 58.04% of the ES
mitigated impact in the same period. Although this region presents
a positive development in terms of SEP provision, the general trend
of the rate of effective ES provision (2001–2013) shows a systematic
decrease in the period of analysis, despite the increase of 5.19% in
the capacity for ES provision.
4. Discussion
4.1. Methodological potential and limitations
The analysis of the spatial and temporal distribution of SEP used
a diverse set of process indicators that encompass the impacts
related to the dynamics of soil erosion and to the service provi-
sion generated by vegetation. Compared to other methodological
approaches that usually base their assessments on a single indicator
(e.g. Koschke et al., 2012; Helfenstein and Kienast, 2014; Frélichová
et al., 2014), our approach provides more insight and more eas-
ily identifies the relations between the underlying landscape
 C.A. Guerra et al. / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222 219

Fig. 5. Representation of: (a) the spatial distribution of the grid cells discriminated by the variation (2001–2013) of the capacity for ES provision (horizontal axis) and the
variation (2001–2013) to the ES mitigated impact (vertical axis); (b) the regional ES provision profile for R1, corresponding to the NUTS 3 Ciudad Real (Spain); and (c) the
regional ES provision profile for R2, corresponding to the NUTS 3 Trikala (Greece).

processes and their consequences in terms of service provision and
of the remaining impacts. Also, although the actual ES provision can
be used as an indicator for valuation purposes, it is not a good “stand
alone” indicator for trend analysis as it is dependent on the spatial
distribution, magnitude and temporal trend of the structural impact
(Guerra et al., 2015).
Our results show that the rate of effective ES provision can
be a more insightful indicator as it provides a better grasp of
the local/regional ES provision performance. This indicator cor-
responds to the percentual variation of the early time slice (e.g.
2001) in comparison to the following (e.g. 2005). This means that
if a particular area lost a considerable amount of ES provision in a
given period, it is probable that in the next period it registers a gain
(e.g. from the recovery from a previous forest fire). Although this
does not mean that the net provision of ES was positive considering
the entire period (2001–2013). This was illustrated in the South of
the Iberian Peninsula where in the first period (2001–2005) there
was a substantial loss of the rate of effective ES provision accom-
panied by relative gains in the following periods, although, in the
same area, there was a cumulative increase of the ES mitigated
impact. In this case this dynamic can also be explained by the high
variation in the capacity for ES provision registered in the region
(Annex 2).
SEP alone cannot be used to determine the effectiveness of ES
provision in a given region (Dunbar et al., 2013; Fitter et al., 2010).
It is also important to consider the interactions and eventual trade-
offs between services in more strategic assessment of the net ES
provision in a given region to better define local environmental
targets.
4.2. SEP provision and vulnerability assessment
Our results illustrate the value of having a comprehensive and
complementary group of process-based ES indicators. They show
220 C.A. Guerra et al. / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 213–222
an overall, non-significant, increase in SEP in the region. A worry-
ing trend becomes apparent when assessing areas that showed a
decrease of the capacity for ES provision and an increase of the ES
mitigated impact (Fig. 5 2Q). These areas (corresponding to 16.5% of
the total study area) point to the eventual insufficiency, ineffective-
ness or non-existence of soil protection measures and reflect very
important regional differences. While in Italy, the Northeast coast
of the Baltic Sea and the South of France this dynamic is related
to a predominance of forest areas, in the Iberian Peninsula and in
Greece it is related to a predominance of agricultural areas. This vul-
nerability analysis also shows that, between 2001 and 2013, 25% of
areas with an increase of the capacity for ES provision were sub-
ject to a further increase of soil loss. These results are related to
the 18.8% of areas with an increase of both the ES mitigated impact
and the capacity for ES provision (Fig. 5 1Q), revealing a situation
where the presence of protective vegetation cover did not result in
an enhanced soil protection.
The two smaller case-studies (Fig. 5b and c) illustrate the power
of creating a regional ES provision profile for assessing the effi-
ciency of SEP. In R1 we observe that even with an overall increase
of 0.88% in the capacity for ES provision, the region had an increase
of 43.98% of the ES mitigated impact following a decrease of 4.73%
in the rate of effective ES provision. Although there is an improve-
ment in SEP provision in recent years (2005–2013), this exposes
the insufficiency of current regional initiatives to halt soil erosion
by promoting SEP. By contrast, R2 shows a completely different pat-
tern with constant gains of efficiency, even when (between 2009
and 2013) there is a decrease of 3.07% in the capacity for ES provision
that is reflected in a slight decrease of 0.08% on the rate of effective
ES provision. Both examples demonstrate the possibility to define
regional targets that can steer regional conservation and economic
development policies that aim to minimize these impacts and their
effects on human wellbeing.
4.3. Policy and research implications
Declines in regulating services provision like SEP can result in
declines in ecosystem resilience (Bennett et al., 2009), and affect the
provision of other ES. Our results show that, in total, 43.5% of the
entire study area presented some type of vulnerability regarding
the mitigation of soil erosion. If this information would be avail-
able in national and international monitoring systems, policy and
management decisions could be better informed and action could
be taken timely.
The insight provided by the combination of indicators suggests
that current policies and land management fail to safeguard SEP
to halt soil erosion. One possible explanation could be that most
of the policies that land managers follow correspond to generic
top-down sectorial approaches. The spatial patterns and indicator
values found here indicate that further disaggregation, consider-
ation of context, and place-based or regional targets could improve
SEP in Mediterranean Europe and prevent undesired ES provision
trajectories.
Finally, in future research, the relative positive trends found
in this paper should be contextualized and regionally assessed in
relation to regional social, ecological and economic. This means
that further research should identify whether the observed pos-
itive trends correspond to an increase of management efficiency
and/or policy implementation or if they are related to land aban-
donment processes that eventually resulted in an increase in the
capacity for SEP.
5. Conclusions
This paper produced a spatially and temporally explicit assess-
ment of the provision of SEP in Mediterranean Europe in the last
decade (2001–2013). We found that in general the provision of this
service is increasing in Mediterranean Europe, particularly between
2009 and 2013. Despite these positive results 43.5% of the region is
vulnerable and in need of focused attention to identify causes and
implement effective mitigation measures. The results suggest that
current policy and land management actions are not safeguard-
ing the provision of SEP. This emphasises the need to evaluate
and assess regulating ES considering a bundle of process based ES
indicators. Particularly for SEP this would provide a clear repre-
sentation of the different dynamics associated to the provision of
the service. This study suggests the need for more adaptive policy
design that can cope with local trends of ES provision and the defini-
tion of regional ES provision targets to mitigate regionally relevant
impacts.
Acknowledgements
Contributions of co-authors were funded by three different
grants under the European Union’s Seventh Program for Research,
technological development and demonstration. The contributions
by M.J.M. were funded by Grant agreement No. FP7-ENV-2012-
308393-2 (OPERAs). The contributions by J.M. were partly funded
under Grant agreement No. 308428 (OpenNESS). The contributions
by IG were funded under Grant agreement No. 308454 (EU BON).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found,
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.
06.043
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